


Appraisal

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Relationship Study, Short One Shot, Who's Pining I'm Not Pining, William Birkin/Annette Birkin Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: William was quite different from Wesker in a way that the latter found intriguing, rather than subject of impatience.
Relationships: William Birkin/Albert Wesker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9
Collections: Fandom Giftbox 2020





	Appraisal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EvilToTheCore13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilToTheCore13/gifts).



William was quite unlike Albert in a way that the latter found…

Comfortable, shall one say.

Will was quite demonstrably brilliant; everyone knew this about him and Albert alike, and so perhaps this is why Albert could not find himself too irritated with him, or impatient, or look down on him. With any kind of sincere distaste, at any rate.

Even when they met as young men, Albert composed, prepared to be professional, and Will very much more of a boy, with tousled hair and his lab clothes frequently out of alignment, speaking with an odd muttered intense enthusiasm, and the better number of their peers nonetheless knowing not to speak down to either of them. William had been unusual for an odd mix of his own superiority and what Albert had wondered what one, for lack of a less-arbitrary word, would describe as normalcy. Not simplicity, certainly, but normalcy.

The difference between himself and Will came down oftentimes to a source of stimulation.

Albert knew, simply knowing Will and the man’s own, functioning mind to be what it was, knew that there was method in it - logic to the disarray of his notes and coffee cups and drink bottles and arrangement of his notes on his desks as if they were a conspiracy lunatic’s pinboards, a reason why he could think best with music playing loud and dark and hectic rhythms rattling his brain inside his skull. Albert attempted to tease it out and theorize with an interest he rarely felt last quite so long over such outwardly-mundane things, as he loomed and watched in the back of a room in wait for any sign of breakthroughs, eyeing from the dark like a panther watching the scurryings and piece-movings and switch-flippings of a white laboratory mouse or pigeon in a puzzlebox.

As his methods, of course, were unlikely to help an unconscious man study, when William fell asleep, whatever value they may have had, it didn’t stop Albert from switching the radio off, clearing away the cups. If need be, adjust Will’s position to one less-likely to twist his arm or strain his back. “You’ll thank me later,” he’d say, an internal smile at the reminder of where Will’s brand of sensibility and productivity caved to his own, coolly vocalized. “We’ll discuss tonight’s work once you’ve rested.”

Will was an amusing riddle, Albert supposed. Stimulating for being ordinary in a way that, it seemed, only made him more noteworthy and remarkable. His mindscape was certainly one that Albert could map as not dissimilar to his own, but made out of such unfamiliar pieces; an intersection of architectural styles that resulted in something only ultimately properly definable to Albert as “Will” - a first in Albert being indeed ultimately content with such simple as-is definitions.

Even as he continued to build that world taller over the years with more trappings of normalcy. A wife, a child - outwardly odd that he would choose to build such an expensive life outside of their word, in terms of time, mental energy, and resources, but so very on-brand in its particulars, and the shapes it took and wove into. Annette was both their associate; he needn’t sacrifice work at all.

Still a design that Albert could begin to understand. Approve of. Through all the deceptive humanity. Through all of the chaos and contradiction.

...One might say that Will was simply human.

Albert did not think so.

If he was simply anything, they never would have begun working together. At least not voluntarily, on Albert’s part. He wasn’t here to be held back.

And, frankly, that was true of and owed to the both of them.

Instead, Will was, in Albert’s view, quite a singular individual.

And there were moments where he watched the man, eyes lit up by monitors as he poured over notes in neon lines and windows containing rotating models of DNA and specimens on black, in the thick of one more sleepless night for him to put back into order later, he felt a twist of something low in his chest. A gnaw, if you will, of something that wasn’t quite anger.

It occurred as he reflected that Will knew this about himself, just as Albert knew it about himself.

Somewhere in an empty, black, far-too-warm place in the back of his mind, the wonder turned in its sleep, as to whether Will took the time to recognize that singularity in him, too.

Along with it, the wonder of why, not short on recognition as he was, it should even matter.


End file.
